Spur gears are the most common type of gears. They have straight teeth, and are mounted on parallel shafts. Sometimes, many spur gears are used at once to create very large gear reductions.
The teeth on helical gears are cut at an angle to the face of the gear. When two teeth on a helical gear system engage, the contact starts at one end of the tooth and gradually spreads as the gears rotate, until the two teeth are in full engagement.
Bevel gears are useful when the direction of a shaft's rotation needs to be changed. They are usually mounted on shafts that are 90 degrees apart, but can be designed to work at other angles as well.
A rack and pinion mechanism is used to transform rotary motion into linear motion and vice versa. A round spur gear, the pinion, meshes with a spur gear which has teeth set in a straight line, the rack.